Example

You own a pizzeria in downtown Chicago, and add a call extension to your campaign promoting deep-dish pizzas. If a visitor to the windy city searches for “Chicago pizza” on her phone, and one of your ads is triggered, this visitor can click through to your website to read your menu, or touch a call button on your ad to get straight to your ordering line.

If you only wanted more phone calls to your pizzeria, you could create a call-only campaign. Your ads would only show on mobile devices that can make phone calls, and all clicks would result in hungry visitors dialing your number to order a slice.

Did you know...

Ad extensions are factored into how Ad Rank is calculated, so showing more relevant, better performing extensions can help improve your ad position. If two competing ads have the same bid and quality, then the ad with the more relevant extensions will most likely appear in a higher position than the other. Learn more about how ad extensions appear on mobile text ads.

Set up ads with phone numbers

Good to know

When you give preference to mobile phones, your call extension will be less likely to show on desktop and laptop computers.

If a campaign or ad group has only mobile-optimized call extensions, these may show on desktop and laptop computers. To avoid this, include standard call extensions of the same type as the mobile-optimized call extensions in your campaign.

Call-only campaigns are not yet available for campaigns targeting the Display Network.

Create a call-only campaign

If your goal is to increase phone calls to your business, you’ve come to the right place. Call-only campaigns allow you to focus on getting more people to click-to-call you straight from your ads. With these campaigns, you’ll be able to use CPC bidding based on the value of a call to your business. You'll also be able to add your existing phone information to your new ads.

Important

Currently, call-only campaigns are available for ads targeting the Search Network.

Ads created in call-only campaigns are fine-tuned to show only on mobile devices that are capable of making calls. Clicks on these ads will only generate calls — they won’t link to a website. These ads also are very flexible with how they can appear. Each line of your ad could potentially be hidden in order for the entire ad to look its best on any mobile phone.

When you create a new ad in your call-only campaign, you’ll be asked to enter a phone number for your business. In order to verify your ad and number, we’ll ask for a verification URL, which should lead to page that displays your phone number. Learn more about the policy for ads with phone numbers.

Enter your business phone number. This is the number people will dial when they click your ad headline.

Add your description text, and display URL.

Enter your verification URL. This should be the address of a webpage that contains the phone number you entered above. AdWords will use this web page to verify your phone number, and the domain of this URL must match your display URL.

Select what type of phone number you would like to show on your ads.

Enter keywords for your call-only ads. To see how often people search for those keywords, click Estimate search traffic.

Enter your default bid. This is the most you'll pay per click for ads in the ad group. Keep in mind that your CPC bids should match the value of a call to your business, since all clicks on your ads will start a call from the device where the ads appear.

Because call-only campaigns only allow clicks to call, you’re able to bid for calls to your business instead of clicks to your website. This means your cost per click bid should match the value you would place on a phone call from your ad. The default bid strategy is maximize clicks, or in this case, calls. If you’ve set up conversion tracking for calls, you can use maximize conversions, or Target CPA bidding.

Select the campaign or ad group for which you'd like to add call extensions.

Go to the Ad extensions tab. If you can't see this tab, find out how to enable the tab.

In the upper corner, choose Call extensions from the View menu.

Enter your phone number

Click + EXTENSION.

You'll see a list of phone numbers you’ve already set up. You can choose one of these or create a new one by clicking the gray + New phone number button. The following steps walk you through how to add this new number.

Choose the country where your business phone number’s based and enter your number in the box next to the country menu.

(US, UK, France, Spain, Australia, and Germany only) You can choose to show your ad with a Google forwarding phone number in order to access advanced call reporting. If you don’t want to use a Google forwarding phone number, choose “My own phone number.”

Choose optional settings and save

Next to “Show the following links,” choose whether you'd like your ad to include both your phone number and your website, or just your phone number. This option affects only mobile devices; on tablets and desktop or laptop computers, your clickable headline could still appear along with your phone number.

(US, UK, France, Spain, Australia, and Germany only) If you’re using a Google forwarding phone number and want to track your mobile phone calls as conversions, check the box next to “Report phone call conversions.” Specify how long a call should be for it to be reported as a conversion.

You can choose to have this call extension preferred over other call extensions when people see your ad on mobile devices. To do this, check the box for "Mobile" next to "Device preference."

If you'd like to limit when the phone number will be eligible to appear in your ad (like during your opening hours), click Start/end dates, scheduling and choose your hours.

Click Save.

You can repeat the steps above to add up to 20 call extensions to each campaign or ad group.

Example

You’ve learned that people on-the-go can be less patient than people at home. You can set up a call extension geared toward people who see your ad on mobile devices, and make that phone number a priority line.

By default, call extensions can show on any browser. You can target specific devices in two ways:

Give preference to mobile phones. Just check the “Mobile” box next to “Device preference” when you create or edit your call extension. This limits the call extension to show on ads on mobile phones, when possible.

Specify device targeting when you create a campaign. As you create a campaign, choose Edit next to “Show this extension on all devices.” Then choose “Desktop and tablet devices only,” or “Mobile devices only.” “Mobile devices only” gives preference to mobile phones.

Navigate to the campaign you'd like to upgrade (for example, "Mobile campaign #1").

Copy and paste the campaign you'd like to upgrade and rename it (for example, "Mobile campaign #2").

When the confirmation dialog box appears, make sure the box next to “Pause new campaigns after pasting” is not checked. This will ensure your new campaign begins running immediately. If you choose to check the box, you'll need to unpause your new campaign after you complete all steps in this guide.

Now that you've created your new call-only campaign, you'll need to disable your active call-only call extensions ads for your original campaign. To do this, pause or remove the original call-only ads in your first campaign (for example, "Mobile campaign #1").

You'll also want to update and potentially lower your original campaign's budget to account for the fact you have created a new call-only campaign (for example, "Mobile campaign #2").

Using the correct phone numbers

In some countries, you can use phone numbers that don’t cost the same as local numbers. This table shows which numbers you’re allowed to use (in addition to local numbers). If you use a non-standard cost number, when people click the call button a disclaimer will appear saying that additional charges may apply.

Call-only ads: To show phone numbers on your ads, you can add a verification URL when creating your ads. This URL should link to a landing page where Google can confirm the phone number you'd like to show on your ads. The phone number on your landing page must match the number you show in your ads. Learn more about the policy for call-only ads.

Monitor performance

After you add phone numbers to your ad, you’ll want to see if they’re paying off. Keep in mind that clicks-to-call are reported as soon as someone clicks the “Call” button, whether or not the call is completed.

Fix a problem with call extensions

To use call extensions in Brazil, make sure you include a carrier code for the carrier of your choice. For example, instead of "11 5555-1234" use "0XX11 5555 1234" (where "XX" stands for the carrier code). For toll-free or premium numbers such as 4004 or 0800, no carrier codes are necessary.

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